


Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out

by ghostbusters



Series: Jearmin Week [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: 1960s, Drug Use, M/M, Woodstock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-09 02:26:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1965444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostbusters/pseuds/ghostbusters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Written for Jearmin Week- Prompt: Lucid Dream)<br/>Woodstock was the perfect setting for doing drugs and hooking up and listening to some really amazing music. Jean and Armin do a little of each at that historic music festival of mayhem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out

**Author's Note:**

> hi i'm Mel and i'm a dirty hippie obsessed with the 60s and Woodstock so this is my loose interpretation of the Jearmin Week prompt. don't do drugs, kids. it's rarely as romantic and exciting as this, belieeeeeve me. the 60s are over. light 'em up...

It was a decade where you could feel weightless, timeless, and really there, all at once. Simply there, trying to find a metaphorical pause button to slow it all down as that very decade was coming to an end. People flocked in from all ends of the continent to catch a piece of the action, or what they felt was the happening gathering, alone while a hundred thousand other people dropped alongside you, each their own universe. All alone inside their own heads and pretending they were galaxies. Prentending it would never come to an end. Steadfast and exciting, they were all moving way too fast, ceasing their crashing waves only to listen to the music. 

The times they were a' changin' and it was incredibly difficult to make sense of it all. Damn hippies, they called them. Flower children. A lost generation. Wandering, wandering.

“Have we met before?” He asked, that boy who'd been lingering around the trio's tent for the worse part of an hour.

“Is that supposed to be a line?” Armin said back, flat and unamused. He knew he did meet that strange, lanky kid earlier in the morning when he was setting up the tent but he also knew that wasn't what he meant by the statement. Didn't matter. No interest in dealing with troublemakers who tried to start shit with his best friends.

“No. Just an observation. A fact.”

“Back to argue about stealing your spot? No spots exist here, man. That's how you really kill a vibe. Not how it works here,” he said matter-of-fact, huffing a breath and adjusting the big daisy tucked behind his ear.

"Oh and who made you the expert on this scene?"

Armin sighed and gazed up at the canopy of branches above the campsite. The sun was blazing proud through the shade.

"Says the expert on being a buzz kill intruder."

“Alright, man. I know. I'm sorry.”

“Alright? Don't come looking for a fight and then act all innocent. But apology accepted, I guess. Don't push it!”

The fairgrounds weren't supposed to be a place of conflict. That's what those steamy jungles overseas were for. Armin scoffed in his own daydream, lamenting the loss of those vast blue waters and their tainted fantasy. No use staring out when nothing good waited on the other side.

“I didn't want a fight, man. I had a bad morning. But I do know you from somewhere. Do I?”

“I don't know, do you?” Armin laughed inwardly and decided to humor this guy. He looked kind of pathetic and desperate to linger somewhere, he might as well chat a little. Eren and Mikasa were still out in town on a supply run.

Armin gave him the once over, concluding that he must be either some yuppie kid or a newbie runaway really trying to put on the airs of a seasoned festival goer. He stood there in his perfect, pristine jeans and tie-dyed shirt, fringe vest insisting on itself. Even the bandanna tied around curly hair looked fresh, obviously not weathered from the road.

“Alright, so where's home?”

“Hitchhiked from Canada to get here, just outside Montreal. Got in this morning and shit, you should see the pile up of cars down the highway. I ditched my ride and walked out here myself. I'm Jean, by the way.”

They shook hands and Armin introduced himself as well.

“Then I know we've never met. We're all from Cali.”

Jean smiled wide at that information. “California, oh man,” he whistled. “You don't say?”

“I do say. What's it to you?”

“That's the goal, right? Make it out there where it's all going on, where there's something fucking real happening. And you! You're a genuine blond California babe! Can't believe my luck.”

Armin couldn't believe this guy. He had no idea what was going on, how faded the scene was. Everything was happening, but some could feel the pull back, the impending ebb of the tide. Armin knew things. And Armin knew Jean was completely full of it. Unbelievable.

“Oh, give me a break. I told you earlier I don't want to hear any lines! Get out of here!” Armin was laughing though, not flattered really, but amused by this dude. He was kind of a moron, but he seemed like good people despite his blind horizon and smug coating. He'll shed it in time.

Jean leaned against a nearby tree shading the campsite and continued to stare with that cocky grin plastered across his face. Nope. Not flustered. Armin was annoyed, that was all to it, pure and simple. Where was Eren when he needed him? His friend was always wandering off at the most inopportune times.

“It's not a lie though. Jean only speaks the truth.”

“Ugh, speaking in the third person? You're so embarrassing.”

“Rude. Now who's the one killing the vibes?”

“They were dead long before you tried to hit on me, repeatedly.”

Armin was aiming for playful, but he wasn't too good at flirting, and could see the confidence wavering in Jean's expression. The hostility didn't deter Jean from sitting himself down on a log near the tent, though, making himself at home. Armin's group really had been lucky in scoring their spot in the woods, just at the tree line with enough shade to hide from the heat of August but close enough to rejoin the open field whenever they wanted. He figured that this Jean character wouldn't be the first leech they'd deal with that weekend.

“Ok. Dude, just tell me what you want,” Armin finally asked after too prolonged of a weird silence from the other guy. He paused in gathering sticks and other firewood for the bonfire later and stood with hand on his hips in front of Jean. Jean looked slightly hurt, a bit bashful under Armin's scrutiny.

“Honestly, I don't know where to go. Didn't have much of a plan other than getting here. Friends back home have no interest in all this so, solo it is, man.”

“I'm sorry. I'm curious now. Why'd you come here?”

“The music, mostly. Caught word of the festival and thought it'll probably make a good story. Mainly on a whim though, had a fallout with the folks and I just walked out. They don't understand what's happening out there. Out here! Shit like this would never happen where I'm from. My family-”

“Sssh. Stop. I don't need the footnotes, I understand.” He offered a hand to Jean, pulling him up off the log. “If you want to stick around you need to help me get this place set up, man.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, just be nice to Eren when he gets back. He's a package deal if you stick around so don't start anything!”

Who was Armin to turn a fellow runaway soul away in the midst of a gathering like this? Only good vibes now, no fighting. No arguments. They stopped their work briefly to light up and pass a joint around as they tidied the campsite, Armin more than glad to see that Jean didn't come to New York completely empty-handed and dead set on mooching. He'd have started his venture to the campsite a lot smoother if he'd offered initially and didn't try to win Armin's favor with those awful attempts at a pick-up. This was the stuff everyone was after, searching for ways to let go and broaden their minds. Good vibes only, man.

Their bonfire mission was quickly forgotten as the sweet, steady smoke took affect, settling heavy on their minds and filling their limbs with lead. They had all night to pick up sticks. They could afford a break. The music wasn't even starting until the next day, anyway, so whatever if they lounged around for a while. Jean wasn't nearly as annoying and high-strung as Armin originally thought. They talked music and their travels and gravitated closer to share another batch of grass.

“Hey! What's this asshole doing here!?” Ah, Eren was back. The very antithesis of the hippie generation. He stood there in the hot sun with his plaid flannel and self-cut jean shorts, hair sweat slick and plastered to his forehead, scowling angrily as he always was.

“Uncool, Eren. Uncool.” The words slid from Armin's lips like a breeze as he grinned and leaned back against Jean, who'd grown so bold as to drape an arm across the other's chest, keeping him close. "Pick flowers, not fights."

"My god, how much have you smoked already?"

Jean stuck out his half-smoked joint in a peace offering, lazily telling Eren to chill out. Eren snatched it away and took a long drag, calming substantially as the smoke trailed past his lips.

“You can stay. Try not to piss me off though, man. This is some good shit.”

“There's a lot more of that to go around, so no worries. I'm not going anywhere,” he added, tightening his hold on Armin. Armin didn't seem to mind, and tipped his head back to smile up at his new friend.

“Roll me a fresh one, will ya? I think I need to catch up with you guys. I'll trade you a tab later for the trouble.”

That certainly piqued Armin's interest, jolting from Jean's lap to scramble over to Eren. “You got some? From where? I heard there was some bad stuff being passed around already.”

“Don't worry about it. Mikasa has it under control. That's where we've been this whole time. In fact, she's still over there dropping with this chick Annie she knows. Scary, but she's good people.”

“I guess that sounds fine.”

Jean glanced between the two. “Well, I trust him,” he said as he passed the newly rolled joint over to Eren in a desperate bid to patch things up between them. Armin couldn't believe those two and the roller coaster they'd dragged him on.

“You both are unbelievable...”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - -

After the sun went to sleep and that bonfire actually was constructed, the energy around the campsite really picked up. Just as Armin predicted, people were drawn to linger around their little cove in the woods and to that plentiful bag of grass by Jean's side. He didn't mind. This was what he'd been after all along.

Everyone wants to be friends with the guy passing out the party favors.

Music and laughter filled the campsite around that blazing fire in the hot August night. They were glowing, those youths riding the wave.

“Hey, Jean. Come with me,” Armin whispered into the other's ear, fire reflected in his eyes.

Jean took the outstretched hand and followed without question, stepping on cracking twigs and tripping over rocks as they both stumbled through the woods. They passed other campsites until finally finding a free clearing. Armin pulled Jean flush against him, giggling as his hands danced across the taller boy's bare chest, shirt discarded some time ago from the heat. Without much warning, mouths crashed together, press of lips sliding only a moment before one of those little tablets were slipped from one tongue to another.

When had he managed to sneak that in there? Jean pulled away, eyes wide and questioning. He'd never done something like this before, all talk in his own head as he traveled to the festival. Jean stuck his tongue out and pointed to the slowly dissolving drug. Armin nodded and pointed to his own throat as he swallowed his own down. What the hell? What was the worst that could happen? With a deep breath, Jean swallowed the tab and waited. The gates were open.

Walking in the woods was like walking through a dream, reality slipping in and out of focus around them. Voices echoed all around the imagined thousand foot tall trees, campfires shimmering in the darkness. Golden light seemed to flicker by every time Armin danced by Jean's vision. He was the sun at dusk, the Cheshire smile in the dark to lead him down the right path. He stared into the fire for what felt like days until Armin grabbed him from behind and pushed him onto the floor of the forest.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Blinding brightness shone above, making his vision full of the thin red of his eyelids. “Ughhh. When did the sun come up? I'm never opening my eyes again.”

Jean's vision was groggy and rough as his eyes eventually blinked open in the harsh daylight. Armin pushed him off his sweating body and pulled stray twigs from his hair. The flower from behind his ear had long since fallen away to be trampled in the mayhem.

“Who knows, and does it matter?” Armin kissed Jean on the cheek and shot up from where he'd been sleeping as he heard the far off sound of cheers and the wail of a guitar. “Oh no, we missed the opening ceremony!”

With a groan, Jean leaned back to the ground, covering his eyes. His entire body ached. What the fuck had they done during the night?

“That's alright. Just let me sleep a little longer.” Armin protested and tugged on his arms to get him back up. There was no rest for the restless.

“No, you'll sleep through the whole thing! You can sleep when you're old and boring, everything is happening now!”

“Armin, we've got three days of this. Wait! Slow down, wait for me!”

Out in the field, bodies were pressing in from every side as the festival raged on, afternoon turning into evening. They were all of one mind, all in one place. A generation lost in sound. It was everything spilling over from a decade of madness. It was-

“It's so damn hot out here! And I can't see anything.” Whine, whine, whine from someone so eager to get to the crowds. So much for the excitement from earlier.

“What's there to see? It's music, dude. Here, keep that mop outta your eyes.”

Jean untied his red bandana and wound it around Armin's forehead, pushing his bangs out of his face while keeping the rest from dangling on his neck.

“Ha, now I look like a real cool kid, eh?” He elbowed Jean in the side, chuckling at his gentle teasing. Jean rolled his eyes at the antics and wound an arm around the other's waist despite the heat. He didn't mind it too much. “You want another tab?”

“Again already? We've only been chill for a few hours.”

“What are you talking about, this will make us chill. Besides, I want to be in the middle of it when Shankar plays. Can you imagine how amazing that'll sound?” The guy raised a fair point.

“I like how you think.” Armin fished out a pair of tabs from from the baggie safe in his pocket and placed one in Jean's hand. “Damn, you have a lot of those. Your friends sure did deliver.”

“We have a long weekend ahead of us. I wanna make the most of it. Gonna be magical,” Armin said through a manic grin, popping in the blue pill to dissolve into bliss.

“Magical, really? I can't take this fucking new age shit seriously, man.”

“Lighten up, Jean. This is where it's happening.”

“If you say so.” He placed his pill between his teeth, grinning wide as Armin waited for him to take it already.

“Come on! Just go with the flow. Don't close your mind off from the experience.”

The acid flowed through their veins, filling the air with a buzzing thickness as the music played on, act after act taking the stage as so many fell further down the rabbit hole. Jean wondered how long this round would last, having lost track of more than half a day the last time he dropped. But, where was he going anyway? He was there in that crowd with Armin cheering on the music right beside him, taking his hand to steady himself as the first real waves crashed. Shankar's melodies glided all around them and Jean felt like he was at the center of the universe, Armin anchoring him there with legs wrapped around his shoulders. He'd convinced Jean to let him get up there for a better view. They both felt like they were flying, even if it was Armin heads above the crowd with arms outstretched, waving in the fluctuating focus of the night.

Rain. Rain and mud. It didn't stop the mob from raging on, a little wetness no deterring match for a group of young people already dealt so much over the years. The crowds were swept up in a tidal wave of euphoria, high and terrifyingly beautiful as the rain poured down. They knew something big was happening on those muddy fields.

Back in the woods again, away from the madness. Guthrie was on stage singing a song about people going their own way when the two boys left the massive crowd, inspired to do just that. The madness was peaking and they needed to find their footing in their swirling dreamworld. Armin guided Jean to the tent, so painstakingly set up the day before. The rain was in a downpour at this point.

Jean laughed and laughed as the two of them spilled into the tent, finally in a dry safe haven for at least a little while.

“How'd we get in here?” he asked through the breathless laughter, voice sounding both loud and far away in his own ears.

“Silly. We swam.”

“Ohhhh. Of course. Stop talking, you'll drown.”

He rolled them over, pinning Armin to the ground with mouths practically glued to one another, muffling loud groans from them both. The acid daze rushed and sparked, raising their already overheated bodies in the stuffy tent. Every point of contact between their bodies tingled like hot pin points, each sensation amplified tenfold under the influence of both the drug and the excitement of the situation. They were lost in it all. Feeling so much should be lethal.

“Fucking hell, what's happening to us?” Jean grumbled as Armin latched on to his neck, sucking bruises into skin slick with sweat.

He groaned at a particularly harsh bite as he scrambled to pull Armin's rain drenched shirt over his head. The article was finally discarded, as was his, with belts and pants to follow. They wanted nothing between them now. The way they moved against each other was insistent, frantic yet lazy simultaneous. The acid was one hell of a warp point, altering their perception of time along with the overheated lusting frenzy.

Armin suddenly fell like a rag doll against the flimsy excuse for a sleeping bag, legs askew and everything out on display shamelessly, eyes wide and grin crooked. Jean, still raring to go, laughed wild as he kissed sloppy paths up and down the pale arm splayed across his face.

“Just do something...” Armin kicked a leg out to ripple the side of the tent, laughing at the way it billowed into unnatural shapes, not actually occurring. He curled fingers into Jean's thick, springy hair, pulling even harder despite the yelp.

“You play rough, dude.” Jean flopped back on top of Armin, too distracted to focus on any one thing.

They kissed and bit at each other's lips while hands traveled over every expanse of skin they could reach. Jean almost shed tears of joy when Armin finally wrapped a hand around him, lazily stroking at the world's slowest pace, but the friction enough was beautiful and needed after building up for so very long. He arched against Armin and returned the favor once he figured out how to work his arms again. Fuck, it was hot in that tent as they writhed against each other, rushing to an end far out of sight.

Neither of them lasted long once they found a mutual pace, having teased the line for too long. Armin came quietly, staring up at the peak of the tent with a silent scream as Jean yelled out loudly, twitching in the after shock. Breaths mingled between them while they stared, amazed at all that connected them there in that tent, on that night with a hundred thousand others not too far away and discovering something important too.

“I feel so lightheaded,” Jean finally said to break their trance.

“Am I still dreaming?”

“When were you dreaming?” Jean asked as he came back to himself a little, searching around in the pockets of his discarded pants for his lighter and a joint. Armin shrugged and giggled to himself, curling in a ball while Jean rifled through his clothing. He finally found what he was looking for and lit up, passing it along to Armin. He was still riding that euphoric and slightly scary wave of adrenaline from the other drugs, but the grass would steady him a little. Or, at least he hoped. You couldn't be sure of anything out there, it seemed.

Music drifted in and over them as they lay in the tent bare to their little hidden sector of the world. The stage was set up in such a way that they could still hear a decent portion of the performers as they wasted away in their campsite at the edge of the woods. Music played on into the wee hours of the morning, taking a break until noon the next day. By then, their tabs of madness had worn off, but it wouldn't be the last ones they took that historic weekend.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - -

At some point partway into the Sunday set, as they rolled and wrestled in the mud, high out of their minds with Armin's other friends right in the thick of the crowd, Jean blurted out a dream he'd swore he would try to push to the back of his mind. The acid was speaking for him, unable to be derailed from its path of honesty. He had heard that 'morning, manic music' and was rolling with that flow Armin kept telling him about the day they first met. Good vibes, and better confessions.

“Can I come back to California with you?"

"Who says we're going back there?"

"Please, I'll follow you anywhere. Where are you headed after today?"

Armin only stared back at first, grin slowly widening like that devilish cat giving directions in Wonderland. There were too many paths to choose and only a few ever find the way.

"I can't know everything," Armin whispered with sultry aloofness into Jean's ear. He pulled back and began to sing along with Jefferson Airplane who were currently belting out passionately on stage, “ _Wouldn't you love somebody to love? You'd better find somebody to love_!”

He pushed Jean back into the mud and kissed him hard with that manic smile too soon interrupting their lips. Let Jean figure it out for himself once the high dissipated and the music stopped. It was a very special time and place to be a part of, that hot and wet weekend in the August haze of '69. Jean was searching for something on that field, some sense of knowing who you were and where you were going and the acceptance that what you were doing mattered, at least for the moment in that small part of the country.

He spread his arms out in the mud, uncaring how thoroughly ruined the dumb, stereotypical outfit he'd picked out specifically for this venue had become. It was worth it, especially at the sight of his once pristine red bandanna still tied securely and proudly around Armin's head, like some corrupted version of the letterman jacket of fifties courtship.

“What _do_ you expect to find out in California? If that's where your feet are itching for, that is. Lots of other places to wander if you're up for following.” Armin finally asked, tone the most serious sounding since their hostile beginnings only a few days before, strangely lucid despite the tab he'd taken a few hours earlier. "Or are you brave enough to take the lead?"

Jean had no idea how to answer that, and chose to close his eyes and dream, singing along with the music instead, fingers twined with that insane, beautiful, _there_ boy next to him in the mud. Everything was happening. 

“ _You'd better find, somebody to love_...”

 

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote most of this slightly intoxicated in the middle of a field in the hot hot summer sun at my brother's baseball game so if it's all over the place, i was going for the method writing approach like the pretentious hippie that i am. i think that's obvious with the hunter s thompson i paraphrased there at the end haaa
> 
> [main tumblr](http://theghostbusters.tumblr.com/) & [snk only](http://aarlertarmin.tumblr.com/).


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